Bears, Vikings pit strength vs. strength

Saturday

Neither team brags about its 6-5 record. Nor do the Bears or Vikings apologize.

Neither team brags about its 6-5 record. Nor do the Bears or Vikings apologize.

“To be in first in this division this late in the season is all you can ask for,” Minnesota defensive end Jared Allen said in a teleconference this week. “You can wish you had a better record, but that’s not the case. You just deal with what we’ve got.”

What we’ve got is one of the most important games between two 6-5 teams in Chicago history. If the Bears win Sunday night in Minneapolis, a team picked to finish third in the division will hold a one-game lead with four games to play.

“This is what football is supposed to be about,” Bears linebacker Lance Briggs said

That includes running the ball and stopping the run, the game’s old-school foundations.

The Vikings and Bears rank second and third in the NFL in fewest yards allowed per carry (3.1 and 3.3).

Yet both teams say they’ll run into the teeth of the opposing defense’s strength.

It’s easy to see why. Minnesota’s Adrian Peterson has 443 yards and seven rushing TDs in three games against Chicago and the Bears are coming off their best rushing game in seven years (201 yards vs. the Rams) and feature rookie Matt Forte, the NFL’s fifth-leading rusher (916 yards).

“It’s pretty tough to run the ball against them, but you have to,” offensive coordinator Ron Turner said. “You have to stick with it.

“We believe in our offensive line and we believe in Matt, so we’re going to go in and give it a shot. If we can get some first downs and get some rhythm, you can get something going. But that’s easier said than done against that defense.”

Ditto for Chicago’s defense. The Bears are allowing their fewest yards per carry in 38 years (3.2 in 1970).

In three of their last four games, they’ve held teams to 1.2 yards per rush (87 yards on 74 carries). The lone exception was a doozy; Green Bay ran for 200 yards on 38 carries.

The Bears were worried about Aaron Rodgers that game and not so much about Green Bay’s bottom-10-rated run game.

Not so with Minnesota. The Bears forced five turnovers by Gus Frerotte in last month’s 48-41 win. Their concern is Peterson.

“His speed sets him apart,” Briggs said. “A guy coming in to make a regular form tackle, as he is going down, by the time he gets up to his body, he is three yards away from you. He is not where you thought he was going to be.”

The run defenders need to be where everyone thought they were going to be. On both sides. Or Forte and, especially, Peterson could break long runs.

“Regardless of what defense you have called,” Childress said, “it comes down to those guys have gap integrity and should stay where they are supposed to be and everybody relies on everybody else. Usually when you have a breakout, it relates to somebody not being able to stay in his gap because he got blocked out of it or cowboying something and playing a hunch and not being true to the defense.”

That’s what he said happened when Chicago played Green Bay.

That’s what can’t happen to Chicago tonight.

“Doing our jobs and trusting each other will be the key,” linebacker Nick Roach said.

If the Bears prove trustworthy, they could once again be in control of the division.

“These are the games you look forward to all year,” tight end Greg Olsen said. “You want to be in these games where you control your own destiny. We don’t want to come down to hoping other teams lose.”

Can the Bears or Vikings lose this game and still win the division? Chicago’s quarterback doesn’t know. Or want to know.

“We’re not planning on losing it,” Kyle Orton said.

Matt Trowbridge can be reached at (815) 987-1383 or mtrowbridge@rrstar.com.

Bears keys to the game

Tommie Harris outplays Kevin Williams. There are two ways to stop the run: everyone holds their gaps, or one guy gets in the backfield and blows the play up before it starts. Kevin Williams is great at that. "He can get past blocks, and when you get penetration in the backfield, it’s hard to get the running game started," Matt Forte said. Harris can do that, too. He’s improved greatly after a slow start and was called the "linchpin of the defense," by Minnesota coach Brad Childress. "I think he’s as disruptive as ever," Childress added.

Take an early lead. Adrian Peterson ran for 107 yards in the first 35 minutes against the Bears last month, but only 14 yards in the last 25 minutes as the Vikings tried to play catch-up. The Bears lead the NFL with 37 points on their opening drive. Score fast again and play good defense early and everything will become easier.

Hold onto the ball. Kyle Orton has thrown a Bears’ record 185 passes in a row without an interception. Just keep that up and the Vikings will find a way to mess up; only two teams have more turnovers than Minnesota’s 22.

Stay aggressive. Chicago came out running a reverse, plus using a direct snap to Devin Hester and throwing early in taking a 21-0 lead last week. "You couldn’t ask for a better start," tight end Greg Olsen said. "We’re going to have to play like that this week. We need to score points, move the ball and hold onto it."

— Matt Trowbridge

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